


How Did That Even Happen       -A Character, Probably

by Unoriginal_WasAlreadyTaken



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Angst and Feels, Bad Decisions, Betrayal, Bittersweet Ending, Character Development, Character Study, Cold, Cold Weather, Developing Friendships, Domestic Fluff, Don't Examine This Too Closely, Don't Have to Know Canon, Emotional, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Roller Coaster, Enemies to Friends, Family Fluff, Fantasy, Feel-good, Feels, Friends to Enemies, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Hurts So Good, I'm Bad At Titles, Inspired By Undertale, Inspired by Music, Learning to Trust Again, No Volleyball, Not A Fix-It, Not Beta Read, Not Canon Compliant, One Big Happy Family, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, POV Third Person, Plot Twists, Posting Before I Overthink it, Prompt Fic, Quote: I wanna be the very best; Like no one ever was (Pokemon), References to Depression, Relationship Study, Sad and Happy, Said Oikawa Who Went On To Ruin Everything, Tags Contain Spoilers, Tags May Change, Team Mom Sugawara Koushi, Tension, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, Time Shenanigans, Time Skips, Tissue Warning, Ushi Gushi, Vampires, Volleyball Dorks & Nerds, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, Winter Makes Things Happen, You were the best, but at what cost, no one is prepared, there isn't a tag for that, what else can i tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 01:22:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29568159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unoriginal_WasAlreadyTaken/pseuds/Unoriginal_WasAlreadyTaken
Summary: He just wanted to end his bad luck, but Nishinoya Yuu was about to get a lot more than he bargained for. He embarks on an epic quest filled to the brim with monsters, questionable morals, and reality-shaking discoveries. To top it all off, his first actual near-death experience has nothing to do with the things that were just listed! It's the quest of a lifetime, but will his luck ever go away?Alternatively, Nishinoya wants a normal life but the universe is conspiring against him to create the exact opposite.Alternate Alternative: A story of hurt and healing. An introspective look at two Haikyu!! bois when one of them is given the power to alter the entire world whenever they want. Their choices led them to who they are, do past mistakes make a person? Future goals? How about appreciating them for who they are at present when anything and everything can change at the push of a button?Alternative to the Alternate Alternative:Well, if gaining good luck was going to be so difficult, he would need some time to prepare.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime & Oikawa Tooru, Nishinoya Yuu & Everyone, Nishinoya Yuu & Nishinoya Yuu's Family, Nishinoya Yuu & Oikawa Tooru, Nishinoya Yuu & Tanaka Ryuunosuke, Oikawa Tooru & Sugawara Koushi
Kudos: 1





	1. I Recognize that You're Upset, I Know [I] did You Wrong

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't even finish the first chapter, but in my defense, it is really long. I'm just posting this so my draft doesn't get deleted again. I had the whole first arc written out in a draft and forgot when it was going to be deleted and didn't save it in another location. I even wrote a poem and it rhymed. I can't remember it now!!!!
> 
> Anyway, this story will probably be confusing at first, there are a lot of things happening. I found a list of plot twists and took it as a challenge, but there is an actual plot besides that so I think it is balanced nicely. The first arc may be a bit boring, nothing big happens until the end, so I went for a comedic approach to make it readable and interesting! 
> 
> This was surprisingly fun to write considering the first time it was written this whole part was probably around five paragraphs, not including dialogue.
> 
> **Warnings: inhumane animal slaughter, skip chapter beginning with "The thought of baby abyssibok" and resume at "Meanwhile, Nishinoya"**  
>  **Hunting animals: skip at "He let out an oomph" and resume at "Meanwhile, Nishinoya"**
> 
>   
> I didn't tag graphic depictions of violence because it didn't seem graphic, but if it is let me know.  
>    
> There's a lot of made-up words because fantasy and random word generators are fun. You can probably guess what most of them are, some of them are explained, and you don't need the exact definitions for the ones you don't get. I was so proud of Swoedaque Prax, when it was corrected to Sweden I felt like a failure. Does Swoedaque really look like a Sweden? Alright, enjoy the first half of the first chapter! :D  
> 

Nishinoya Yuu was a very lucky person. This luck was the reason he was currently fleeing from the shopping district, panic increasing, and breathing becoming heavy. He had seen a face he never wanted to see again and, unfortunately, that face had seen him. He was running erratically and the chase had barely begun. He couldn’t believe Oikawa Tooru, the only person he had ever hated, had found him. As he reached the outskirts of the shops, the warmth their fires brought abandoned him. The icy sting of Jarastahine winds alerted him to the fact that he had forgotten his coat. With a shiver, he continued without it. The risk of running into Oikawa was too great to return. Running through the throngs of people, or running into them, Nishinoya tripped and his shoe went flying. He pushed himself off of the ground and kept running.

* * *

Nishinoya Yuu sneezed. He hoped it was because of the dust he had unsettled when he shifted the old parchment on his table. He didn’t have time to be sick. Glancing over yet another boring “scientific journal” he sighed, this one wouldn’t help him either. He realized that was a bad idea when the resulting dust cloud made his eyes water. He squinted at an ink blob. The dim light his gas lamp was giving off was not helping him understand all the smudged writing. He shivered, the archive buildings had a hard time keeping the elements out and the wind blowing through the cracked structure chilled him to the bone. He held his gloved hands to the weak flame and rubbed them together to warm them, unsuccessfully. Tired and cold, he left for the day. He had found nothing helpful and was growing irritated.

Nishinoya wasn’t a very studious person, and he could think of a lot of things he would rather do than sit in the dusty archives pouring over the old scrolls. However, he needed to find a cure. He wasn’t looking for a cure for some incurable disease, or a rare magical one. No, he had a much simpler, or so he thought, thing to cure: luck. One might question why any person would try to cure luck. Was luck not a good thing? While his own luck certainly wasn’t doing him any favors, Nishinoya wasn’t entirely sure it was a bad thing. It definitely had a way of making life interesting. However, his luck gave him a tendency to drop and trip over things, as well as be more clumsy than the average person. This was a financial burden on his family business, which specialized in making delicate ceramics.

As he reached the door of his family’s humble abode, his two younger siblings came tumbling out to tackle him into a hug. A chorus of “welcome back’s” filtered out of the open door. Nishinoya smiled, how could he not, his favorite people surrounded him. His older sister held out a hand, which he took. She lifted him, along with the two clinging to him, up with ease. It was a routine they seemed to have fallen into ever since Nishinoya had started spending his days in the archives. The enticing scent of food lured the younger ones towards the kitchen as his sister asked the same question she always did.

“Any luck today, Yuu?”

As always, he laughed at the phrasing before responding, “No, I have to be running out of things to read though! It’s so boring!”

“Well, I might have found something!” she said excitedly, but before she could elaborate, their mother announced that dinner was ready.

Nishinoya was so eager to know what his sister had found that he couldn’t sit still. He barely paid attention to the plates they were eating off of, which was uncommon, as he loved the designs his family made. He rushed through eating as fast as he could, still managing time to converse with his family and compliment their skills. Nishinoya and his sister were both done in record time and ran upstairs to her room. She pulled out a fairly new-looking scroll, which piqued his interest even more. None of the papers in the archives looked that clean. As she showed it to him, he felt himself deflate a little. It was about odlire caps.

Odlire caps were very common, the plant’s dried leaves made their roof, and they had a small patch of dwarf odlire caps behind their house. He couldn’t count the number of flower crowns and necklaces he had amassed from his siblings made of the plants. Everyone knew common things weren’t lucky. His sister seemed to read his mind and pointed out a certain line of text.

The finder of a four-leafed dwarf odlire cap would receive enough good luck for a lifetime. However, no one has seen such a miracle.

They looked at each other and grinned. He went to search their patch, but his sister grabbed his arm.

“I doubt it’s going to be that easy.”

After a lapse of searching, which was really more than the tiny patch deserved, it became apparent that his sister was indeed correct. Well, if gaining good luck was going to be so difficult, he would need some time to prepare.

* * *

It had been about a fourth of a tidal movement since Nishinoya had learned about four-leafed dwarf odlire caps. He had pretended to do his research; from past knowledge, he decided Swoedaque Prax, known for its extensive fields of both types of odlire caps, would give him the best odds. However, the trip there would take at least a chrono and that was too long for Nishinoya. He didn’t even know if he would find what he was looking for. At least now that he had a plan, he didn’t have to live in the archives. He was definitely enjoying being around his family more, which was the exact reason he couldn’t leave. He didn’t want to leave his family and never return.

He knew using the word never may be slightly dramatic, but anything could happen in two chronos. Usually, he was pretty good at being annoyingly optimistic even in the face of death, but this trip was giving him a bad feeling. However, his best friend “caught wind” of the situation, he blames his parents who would definitely do something like this. What really surprised him was that Oikawa Tooru not only pushed him to go but also seemed enthusiastic about leaving himself. 

With the encouragement of Oikawa and his family, admittedly tired of his lucky streak, he was packing only a few starfalls after his friend had found out about the four-leafed dwarf odlire caps. When he finished packing his favorite satchel, he grabbed his other bags from downstairs and brought them to the covered wagon. Stepping outside, the wind instantly froze him. Jarastahine wasn’t the prime season for traveling, but Oikawa was eager to leave. As he finished loading his last items, something poked him in the back and he jumped.

“Yoohoo~,” Oikawa said. 

Nishinoya relaxed as he recognized the voice. He motioned to where his luggage was stored and said, “Put your stuff in there.” 

“Ooh, do I get to ride back here too?” he asked gleefully. 

“No.” 

Nishinoya could feel Oikawa’s signature pout focused on him and refused to turn around and acknowledge the man. He instead moved to walk back into his house and exchange a last goodbye with his family. It was a tearful process that was quickly interrupted by Oikawa, “Okay, it’s time to go now! You’ll see each other again, it’s not like he’s leaving forever!”

Nishinoya huffed at his friend’s attempt to hurry them along but conceded. Sitting at the front of the wagon, they were off! They covered a respectful distance before deciding to stop for the sky orb movement. Oikawa complained about the fact that nothing abnormal had happened, stating that the starfall could have been more eventful. The two boys jumped down from their seats and, while Oikawa went off to find a suitable place to set up camp, Nishinoya went to the back of the wagon. Rummaging around, he frowned when he came up empty-handed.

“Hey, Oikawa, did you pack any food?” Nishinoya shouted in the general direction of where his friend had wandered off.

“No,” the responding shout came back, quickly becoming panicked, “Did you pack any food? You always have food!”

“It looks like the starfall got eventful then,” Nishinoya said as the other approached him.

“What does that mean? We don’t have any food? What are we going to do? We have to turn around!” Oikawa was growing more hysteric by the click. What if they died of starvation on the way back? Sure, they had only been traveling for a starfall, but they hadn’t eaten in that time. They had been too excited about being on a journey.

At Oikawa’s last statement, Nishinoya, who had gone back to looking for something, stopped and turned, “Okay.”

“What do you mean, okay? Nothing about this is okay!”

“Okay, let’s turn back.”

“Oh, no no no no no, Nature isn’t winning that easily! You’re not winning that easily! We’ve only been traveling for a starfall, I won’t allow us to give up yet! That’s right Nishinoya, I, the great and magnificent at all he does, Oikawa, will get us some food!”

He let out an oomph as something hit his chest. Looking down, he saw a bow and arrows. He looked back up, a look of betrayal painted on his face, “You made me choose the hard job, didn’t you?”

The only reply he got was a devilish grin. He sighed and stalked off into the surrounding forest. Simply stepping past the first tree made this adventure a bit too adventurous for his taste. They had planned the trip to where they could always be on a marked path, the least amount of adventuring required to have an adventure. Why would anyone readily sign up for an adventure if they knew it entailed finding their own food, somehow.

He wondered what Nishinoya was doing. He had probably built a fire and was being warm to spite him. At that thought, the wind picked up and he started shivering, his teeth clacking. He wouldn’t get any food with the amount of noise he was making. He sat down and rubbed his hands together. As they warmed up, he held them to his face. He had packed warm gloves, in fact, he had been wearing said gloves moments ago. He had taken them off in a moment of stupidity. In all actuality, it wasn’t that cold, especially for the season they were in. It looked like Jarastahine was ending; the world was warming up, soon new life would appear.

The thought of baby abyssibok warmed him up quickly. The thought of grown abyssibok made his stomach growl and reminded him of why he was sitting in the woods in the first place. He grumbled as he got up until he heard the snap of a twig. He looked around wildly for the source of the sound, before looking down. There it was: an abyssibok. Instead of shooting at it, Oikawa simply lunged at the creature and once he had it pinned, he grabbed an arrow and started stabbing blindly. He had done it, he had successfully created food! As the animal’s twitching subsided, Oikawa realized he had been screaming, a heroic war cry by all means, but still screaming. Now he would have to go deeper into the forest as he needed at least one more. He grabbed the abyssibok and continued on his way.

Meanwhile, Nishinoya, currently cocooned in blankets beside the fire, had glanced at the woods when the aforementioned heroic war cry happened. He hoped whatever grabbed Oikawa hadn’t mauled him too badly, he still needed to cook when he got back. It might seem like he was being lazy, but Nishinoya felt they balanced their work. He had constructed the tent and set everything up, and lit a fire. Afterward, he had found not one, but two tree trunks that could substitute as seats. And now he was rewarding himself, cuddled up by the fire in a cocoon of warmth and coziness. He deserved it.

About a lapse later, a disgruntled Oikawa appeared on the edge of the forest. Nishinoya thought he didn’t look nearly mauled enough to account for all the “scared to death” yelling he had heard earlier. Oikawa, freezing, hurried over to the lit fire. As a blast of hot air hit him, he sighed in relief and some tension left his body. He threw the gathered abyssibok at Nishinoya with the instruction to, well, cook. The blank stare he got in return almost made him rip his hair out.

“You don’t know how to cook!?” He yelled, utterly done with the eventful sky orb movement. He refused to believe this was the exact thing he had been whining about not happening earlier.


	2. I Hardly Sleep when I'm Alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I've resigned to my fate that these chapters will probably not be separated as I intended. I'll just post as I go, but keep the number of chapters this is currently planned to be just to see how far I stray. Now I need more chapter names though. *sighs*
> 
> The titles are just lyrics from songs that were SUPPOSED to go with their chapters, but things change and the titles didn't. So have some random titles hinting at the future.
> 
> **Warning: Technically more animal cruelty. I don't know how it turned out like this, this was not intended. Really, it's up to the reader's interpretation of what happened but I'll put this here just in case.** I'm adding the graphic depictions of violence too, I never know what is graphic but I'll just be on the safe side. It wasn't meant to be this way! I'm sorry.
> 
> ~~I feel like there was some other important thing to type here but IDK so if there was I blame myself.~~
> 
> Thank you for the five hits! That is at least four more than I expected! :D I don't even care if it was just the same person, its still exciting! (/0^0)/

With the first starfall of mishaps out of the way, Nishinoya and Oikawa broke camp. They were still tired, as they hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep. Oikawa had taken some time to learn how to cook the abyssibok. However, they were excited for their second starfall of hitting the trail! The trip had a memorable start already, which Nishinoya knew was going to be laughable later. For the second time, their ride was uneventful, there were no complaints this time. They traveled for most of the starfall, as the sky orb reached the end of its descent, they stopped to pitch their tent, get a fire going, and find food for the night. The sky orb movement definitely went smoother than last time.

They went to bed happily with full stomachs, ready for a full day of adventuring next starfall. The starfall came far too soon with the familiar death scream of Oikawa. It was not a sound Nishinoya enjoyed waking up to and realizing that he couldn’t see anything chilled him more than the weather. He heard something shifting around and when Oikawa screeched again, he decided the movement wasn’t his friend’s. He felt around in his pocket for a knife. He had packed a few weapons and kept a knife on him because, let’s face it, they were in the middle of the woods. Anything could happen. 

Locating the knife, he grabbed it. The movement, which he had thought was slight, had alerted whatever was making Oikawa scream to his presence. In a flash, there was pressure on his legs and a face in his. It was a vampire. This made him lose all rational thought, and he closed his eyes as he swung the knife wildly. When Oikawa screamed again, he opened his eyes to see the body of the vampire slouched over. He pushed it out of the tent and turned around to find the head he apparently sliced off. He quickly picked that up and threw it out of the tent as well. 

Suffice to say, they did not sleep ~~well~~ during that sky orb movement. They also weren’t too excited for their third starfall of traveling. They almost went off of the path several times, dozing off from the lack of sleep. Now that he was awake and not screaming, Oikawa thought it was weird that they had seen a vampire. It was rare to spot one during Jarastahine or any cold weather as they were cold-blooded animals. In fact, the creature had probably come into their tent looking for warmth. He looked over at Nishinoya and glared.

“That had to have been your luck’s fault!”

“My luck rarely does things like that. What if it was your luck’s fault?”

“I don’t even have luck!”

“Sure, that’s what they all say.”

* * *

Luckily, their luck did indeed pick up. A tidal movement into their adventure proved screaming in the face of death had been worth it. They met a ton of interesting people and story swapping became a favorite pastime. The best story they heard had been when they stopped at Soveilguard Village. Since their trip was so long, they had planned out where they could stop; the first time they did, Oikawa had insisted that they buy food to bring with them. Upon entering the village, they did their normal routine: Oikawa looked for an inn for the night, Nishinoya wrote and sent a letter to his family, picking up any they had sent to him, and then meeting up at the pub. 

Unbeknownst to them, they were about to meet Nishinoya’s new best friend. In that pub, they came across an eccentric bard by the name Tanaka Ryuunosuke, who wrote them a poem. A story about the two’s travels:

_There once was a gremlin and ogre_

_With such a quest_

_To defeat luck_

_I wish them the best_

_Oh My, I had to look twice_

_For who would have guessed_

_That an ogre could cook quite nice_

_And a gremlin could be mad with its height._

There was a moment of silence before Nishinoya whispered, “Ryuu, what is this?”

“It’s a poem!” Tanaka yelled in disdain.

“What kind of poem is that?” Oikawa asked while holding back laughter.

“It’s freestyle!”

“It’s horrible.”

“I bet I can make you shorter!”

“It’s lovely, Ryuu.”

* * *

About halfway through their journey, they were riding through a thick forest when clouds started rolling in, shrouding their path in darkness. It quickly began to rain. This, by itself, was nothing to worry about; it was a common occurrence in the season. As sprinkles turned to downpour, the boys were soaked. A cloth covering did little against water. When the first serpical energy strike lit up the sky, they realized this wasn’t an ordinary storm. The light flashing across the sky, along with the consequential booming noise, frightened the hippogibelk. Nishinoya pulled on the reins, trying in vain to keep the terrified animals under control.

Oikawa was feeling as panicked as the hippogibelk. He was clutching the sides of the seat tightly, knuckles turning white. The infrequent lighting and sheets of rain made it almost impossible to see. He realized he hadn’t known genuine fear when Nishinoya leaped into the back of the wagon. Now, he was being pulled along by wild animals, in a dangerous storm, with a friend who seemed to suffer from demonic delirium. He was petrified.

“What are you doing!” he yelled to Nishinoya.

“Help me!”

Well, that was not calming in the slightest. In fact, it was mildly unsettling. Suddenly, the serpical energy lit up their path long enough for Oikawa to see why Nishinoya had abandoned the reins. They were headed straight for a cliff! There was not enough room to stop the wagon even if, by sheer luck, they managed to control the hippogibelk. He quickly joined Nishinoya in throwing their bags out of the wagon.

“Jump!”

* * *

Oikawa hurt all over. He had positioned his joints at awkward angles for too long. They didn’t want to move, and neither did the dried mud securing them in place. He looked around, carefully turning his sore neck. It surprised him to see the wild surroundings. He did not know how he got there, which was probably a bad thing. Then it started coming back to him. There had been an adventure, and a storm, a gremlin and ogre, and Nishinoya. Nishinoya had been with him! He needed to find the man.

He tried to get up, but his body would not allow it. He collapsed back down. He decided to just look for the other. He slowly turned onto his side and searched. He saw Nishinoya lying a few bodies away. Oikawa attempted to call out to him and realized how parched his throat was. No sound came out. He needed water. He needed to move towards Nishinoya. From what had just happened, he knew standing was out of the option. He contemplated rolling but decided his head was spinning enough. Some stretching told him his arms seemed the most agreeable with movement at the moment. He proceeded to drag himself across the ground, toward his fallen companion.

When he got there, he began shaking Nishinoya to wake him up. As he did so, his hand fell on something. It was a canteen. A canteen full of water. He grabbed the canteen and downed it, forgetting about Nishinoya for a moment. It was gone before he realized it, and all that he could think about was that he needed more. Now that he had water in his system, he could actually stand up. He gathered and move their bags into the treeline, hidden from view. Then, he grabbed Nishinoya, picked him up, and went to find a water source.

Nishinoya, for his part in this, did not know what was happening. He knew he had been rudely aroused a few clicks ago, but he was now reaching for a canteen that wasn’t there. Oikawa was both glad and worried that he wasn’t moving around too much as they made their way deeper into the forest.

Oikawa had searched for lapses, but he had found no water or even damp soil. The sky orb started his descent, filling him with dread. They needed water and food, and he wouldn’t be able to search without light. The searching he had done already left him groggy. As the last few light rays faded away, their luck seemed to turn. Oikawa had stumbled upon a house. It was a small cottage, and in the middle of the woods, but hopefully, there would be someone that could help them. He went up to the door and knocked.

“Hello,” a voice spoke as the door opened, “Who’s there?”

It took Oikawa a click to realize that this was not a disembodied his dreary mind had concocted to make him stop. He wouldn’t put it past himself, his muscles had been screaming at him for a while. He was sure that was not what they were meant to do. It took him another click to realize a question had been asked and that he probably needed to respond to it.

“El-” he croaked before his voice gave out. He needed water. He had already drank water. Why did he need more? He had just had some. He was still holding the canteen-no wait, no, no, that was a leg. Why was he holding a leg? Where was he? Why was everything so dark? Why weren’t words coming out? He needed water. He needed food. He needed…a nap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These children really need to learn the correct way to use the weapons provided. At least they're effective. You cannot say that they aren't
> 
> Let me tell you, dehydration is not fun. You question your life choices and ponder when death will claim you, and, if we're being honest, it probably will if you don't fix it soon. Don't be the stubborn idiot who thinks they don't need to bring a water bottle. Hydrate or Diedrate, people! Hydrate or Diedrate!

**Author's Note:**

> That was the first 2,000 words and I hope you stick around! It will be a wild ride if you couldn't tell from the tags which are somewhat contradictory but all applicable. I mean some might not be used in the traditional sense of the usage, but all are applicable as the story progresses.


End file.
